Photos trapped gang

SECRETLY-snatched pictures of an armoured car raid brought down a gang dubbed "The Fast Car Robbers". Members of the gang were spotted leaping from a stolen Jaguar to raid the Securicor van while staff refilled cash machines.But the masked men, armed with garden shears, had no idea they were being caught on camera as they terrorised staff who were handling the money before snatching bags of cash containing £14,420.

SECRETLY-snatched pictures of an armoured car raid brought down a gang dubbed "The Fast Car Robbers".

Members of the gang were spotted leaping from a stolen Jaguar to raid the Securicor van while staff were refilling cash machines.

But the masked men, armed with garden shears, had no idea they were being caught on camera as they terrorised staff who were handling the money before snatching bags of cash containing £14,420.

By pure chance a security consultant who had been hired by Securicor was following the cash van that night and filmed the entire raid in Salford.

Detectives used the footage to help put away the gang for a total of 63 years for a series of violent armed raids.

The gang got their nickname after cruising to their targets in a fleet of high-performance luxury cars carefully selected and stolen to order for the job.

Sometimes they had stolen car keys from unsuspecting motorists' letterboxes using makeshift fishing rods made from garden canes and hooks.

On other occasions terrified householders were woken in the night to find masked men battering their doors down before stealing the keys and fleeing in the family car.

Terrified

In just three months the gang raided a post office and a Securicor van but were believed to have been plotting raids on at least six other targets.

At Manchester's Minshull Street Crown Crown, gang leader Simon Shaw, 26, who used his home in Plodder Lane, Farnworth, Bolton, as the "nerve centre" for the group's operations, was jailed for 14 years after admitting conspiracy to rob and conspiracy to burgle.

Shaw was arrested with his girlfriend on the car-park of a Mecca Bingo hall hours after masterminding a £15,000 robbery in which his mob ram-raided a post office at Radcliffe, near Bury.

His gang had also been planning a raid on a post office in Bolton when it was inadvertently thwarted by a police dog handler.

Christopher Williams, 25, of Hereford Road, Eccles, was jailed for 13 years and Paul Kelly, 23, of Salisbury Road, Eccles, for eight years after both admitted conspiracy to rob and conspiracy to burgle. Williams was also convicted of the theft of two cars and an unrelated burglary.

Jailed after being convicted of conspiracy to rob were Lee Seddon, 26, of Suffolk Street, Salford, who got seven years, Scott Howarth, 28, of Littleton Road, Salford, 61/2 years, Robert Pinkney, 21, of Isis Close, Kersal, Salford, four years, and James Phelan, 29, of Kiwi Street, Salford, seven years.